- Pushkar Singh is an L6 engineer at Google. He's been in the ads AI space since 2017.
- Some engineers in the team he manages have Ph.D.s, though Singh doesn't have one himself.
- One way he stays competitive in his field is by volunteering to review research papers.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Pushkar Singh, a 31-year-old Google engineering lead in California, about breaking into and staying competitive in the AI field. Singh's employment and salary have been verified with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Google is a very big company that solves all kinds of problems. I've found my niche here.
I joined in 2015 as an L3 engineer straight out of college. I started in Google Docs but moved to the ads AI space in 2017. I liked the high impact and high stakes in ads; if you make a mistake, you can cost companies and advertisers millions of dollars.
I worked my way up the ranks to become an L6, known as a staff software engineer, with a base salary of $252,000. With my bonus and stock grants, I'll receive over $519,000 in total compensation by the end of 2024. I'm an engineering lead on a team powering two of Google's big ad products. Part of my job is working on AI models that power core features behind these products.
I lead a team of 13 other engineers, many of whom have doctorates, even though I don't have one myself. In my experience, it's more common to have a master's or Ph.D. than just a bachelor's in the AI and machine learning field.
Here's how I got an AI job at Google without a Ph.D. and how I stay up-to-date in this rapidly developing industry.
I thought about getting a Ph.D. but was offered a job at Google before I got the chance to
I grew up in India, and for my bachelor's, I studied computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. I'd always been interested in computers, so it felt natural to me to pursue this for my career.
Two years into my degree, I asked more senior peers at my university how I could make the most of my summer break. They suggested I find a research internship.
I cold-emailed 30 to 40 professors I wanted to work with, and finally, one academic at a university in Japan let me work on their research project. This got me into the AI and machine learning world and the research mindset. The following summer, I did a different internship, also in machine learning. I wanted to go into machine learning because it was a rapidly developing field being used to solve hard problems like spam reduction.
With my research experience and high college grades, a Ph.D. felt like a natural future step for me. However, I became interested in competitive coding as a hobby during my degree too, and I became quite good at it.
I participated in a coding competition organized by Google. The company noticed me and asked me to interview with them. It led to a job offer. My interviewer even offered me a job on his team because he really liked me.
Instead of going on to do a Ph.D. after graduating in 2015, I started working for Google in Bengaluru that year.
Now, I manage a team of other engineers, some of whom have Ph.D.s
My first Google manager, who interviewed me, briefly mentioned he liked my research internships and strong competitive coding background. He put me on a team working on an AI model for auto-capitalization in Google Docs. I also worked on improving the spellcheck.
In 2017, after being promoted to an L4 engineer, I requested a move to the US with the company. Silicon Valley and computer science are synonymous, so working there was a dream for me.
Since the move, I've been working on developing keyword-less ad technology. I built the first models for keyword-less targeting in PMax, and for my work, I received a Google Ads Tech Impact award. I also launched the final URL expansion and received another company award.
Since moving to America, I've received two promotions and am now an engineering lead for a team of 13. I'm responsible for choosing which projects my team works on to have a positive impact and help them progress in their careers.
Several people on my team have a master's, and multiple also have Ph.D.s. You can be a Google engineer without a master's or Ph.D., but from what I've seen, most people in the AI and machine learning field have these qualifications, showing how competitive the field is.
My first manager at Google gave me AI work without these qualifications, and while I don't know exactly why, I think having top grades in my bachelor's and two research internships helped.
You can thrive and get promoted in AI without these qualifications because the field is changing rapidly. Your degree can give you a headstart, but to stay relevant, you need to regularly upskill. Without that, even a Ph.D. recipient can become irrelevant.
I make active efforts to stay competitive in my field
A couple of methods have particularly helped me stay up-to-date in my industry.
The first is being part of a research paper reading group. Every two weeks, my team and I, and some other folks outside the team, meet. One person is tasked with reading a research paper in two weeks. At the meeting, they'll present the paper and talk about its new findings. The group critiques the paper and brainstorms whether we can use the research in our work.
I've found this is an efficient way to keep the team up-to-date. There are so many research papers out there, but this is a collective effort.
The second thing is volunteering to review research papers. When new papers are developed, research conferences need people to volunteer their expertise and assess how novel they are. This means I can read papers before they're published and also give back to the research community.
I've been doing these two things for years. They've helped me develop my expertise, and I think they've played a part in helping me get promoted at Google because people recognize I'm very dedicated.
Job opportunities in AI are exploding. If you're someone who's excited about new things and problem-solving, then I think it's a good field to be in.
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